Corn dolly making is on the Heritage Crafts Red List, the register of British crafts at serious risk of dying out. Braided Grain runs an evening workshop in Sneinton, Nottingham that is one small answer to that. It is taught by Lucy Towle, a third-generation straw worker who learned from her mother, who learned from her grandmother. Over two hours you make two of the oldest forms in the craft, the Harvest Neck and the Drop Dolly. You work with damp straw, which bends where dry straw snaps, the same material and more or less the same method used at harvest long before anyone thought to call it heritage. Straw, materials and refreshments are included. You bring nothing but yourself. It is a single evening, kept to small numbers, in a hired room rather than a craft centre. Lucy sells her finished pieces online and at markets the rest of the year, so the workshop is the one time you can watch how they are made and make one yourself. A craft this close to the edge tends to survive because somebody keeps teaching it. Here, that somebody is Lucy.

Days, dates and times

Thursday 27 August 2026, 6pm to 8pm. A single two-hour evening session.

About this experience

The workshop runs for two hours on one evening, from 6 to 8pm, at The Watered Garden on Gedling Street in Sneinton. Lucy begins with where corn dollies come from and what they were for at harvest, then sets the group working. You make a Harvest Neck first ( a spiral worked around a central core) then a Drop Dolly (an open spiral). Both are traditional forms rather than simplified versions for beginners. Straw and all materials are provided, so there is nothing to bring. Tea, coffee and biscuits throughout. Numbers are kept small.

How to book / attend

Book online via the website: https://www.braidedgrain.com/product/harvest-corn-dolly-workshop

Social Media

https://www.instagram.com/braidedgrain/

What will participants learn or take away?

You leave with two finished pieces, a Harvest Neck and a Drop Dolly, both made by your own hands. You also leave with the basic plaiting and spiralling that underpin most straw work, enough to carry on at home if you want to, and a feel for a craft most people assume has already gone.

Event Dates

Website

www.braidedgrain.com/product/harvest-corn-dolly-workshop

Address Summary

Unit 11 Gedling Street, Nottingham, NG1 1DS